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60 Minutes: Segment Extras

Blindsided: The exoneration of Brian Banks

Has Brian Banks' dream of an NFL career been delayed or even destroyed by a false charge of rape and five years in prison?

2013Mar 24

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The following script is from "Blindsided" which aired on March 24, 2013. James Brown is the correspondent. Peter Radovich and Gareth Hughes are the producers.

A little more than a decade ago, Brian Banks was a star linebacker at Poly Tech High School in Long Beach, California. A well-known football powerhouse that's sent dozens of players to the National Football League. He was being recruited by the best college teams in the nation, dreaming of an NFL career of his own. But then, in the course of a single afternoon, his life changed forever and eventually the 17-year-old landed in Chino State Penitentiary for raping and kidnapping a female classmate. However, even though he pled no contest, we now know that Brian was innocent.

It's a story that 60 Minutes has been following for close to a year, and as you're about to hear, almost nothing about Brian Banks' story -- beginning, middle, or end -- is what you'd expect.

Last May, like every other team in the National Football League, the Seattle Seahawks held a spring mini-training camp for players with hopes of making the roster in the fall.

Amid the many long shots, one player, in the number 43 jersey, stood out because Brian Banks had not played organized football in 10 years.

Brian Banks: To have my name on the back of this jersey, to be a part of this team for a day, it was more than I could ever imagine.

The last time Brian played football, he was in high school. And he was so good, that as a sophomore, scouts from USC had spotted him at a camp, and soon, the team's head coach, Pete Carroll, got in touch.

Brian Banks: I received a phone call from Coach Carroll. "We're offering you a chance to come play for us." And I gave 'em a verbal agreement saying, "I'd love to."

Everything seemed to be lining up for Brian. Until one day at school, he was hanging out with a girl he'd known for years. Her name was Wanetta Gibson. What happened next changed the course of Brian Banks' life forever.

Brian Banks: We made our way to this area, and pretty much began making out. You know, we kissed. We touched. But we never had sex.

James Brown: No argument? No--

Brian Banks: No argument-- we actually ended on a good note, where, you know, I was making jokes, and, you know, she smiled. And everything just seemed normal. Everything seemed OK.

But it wasn't.

By the end of the day, Brian Banks was sitting in jail, charged with two counts of forcible rape and kidnapping Wanetta Gibson. He was kicked off the football team and expelled from school with all hope of a scholarship, and NFL career, suddenly vanished.

The only thing he could do was fight for his innocence and the only person who was in his corner was his mother, Leomia Myers, who sold her house and car to pay for a lawyer.

Leomia Myers: I consider it doing what a mother should do.

Initially, Brian's prospects appeared to be looking up: DNA samples from the L.A. County Sheriff's Office came back negative - as he insisted they would. Unable to make a million dollar bail, Brian waited for a trial for a year behind bars.